Archive for
September 1st, 2005


Stories

Singapore metablog Tomorrow.sg and a discussion on Linking Policies 

This author has no photo mrbrown · 23:49

Lately there has been a flurry of debates online about Singapore metablog, Tomorrow.sg's linking policy, and its policy of not asking for permission before linking people's blog posts.

Some of the debates go right to the heart of issues like whether it is an accepted practice to link to blogs without the need for asking for permission, whether is is morally acceptable, and privacy issues.

The post has attracted high readership and a great deal of participation in the comments section. There are also many spillover posts in other Singapore blogs on this matter. Try Geekazoid who is very upset at having been linked without permission (very strong language).

Idle Days, one of Tomorrow's editors, posts some reaction to the controversy. An excerpt:

All I can say that this ‘debate’ has been of much interesting and in some ways slightly baffling one to me (for all the reasons I have stated here) and of course when you look at metablogs like boing boing, Slashdot, Metafilter, etc, you hardly see cries of foul play in their comments. If readers and those bloggers whose posts have appeared in these metablogs demanded permission, they would have gone the way of the dinosaur by now. Perhaps as Singaporean bloggers, we simply don’t get blogging after all.

Adrian Loo at A Life Uncommon finds such reactions arrogant:

Tomorrow, in propounding its linking policy appears to have been caught up in its own expectations of its own rights, without due regard to the rights of others, many of whom provide the substance from which Tomorrow draws its breath.

An anonymous commenter at Adrian Loo's blog disagrees:

Pray tell, how could it be that they are advocating an absolute rights model which theirs triumph over all others when the very tag (”tomorrow I’m not free”) that they respect is created by a blogger, not themselves? If that’s not acceptance and respect of bloggers who do not want to be linked, I don’t know what is.

“tomorrow I’m not free” is a logo some bloggers use to indicate that they do not wish to be linked to by Tomorrow.sg.

The trackbacks beneath Tomorrow.sg's linking policy post show just some of the Singapore blogs and forums discussing this topic (with passionate comments and debates igniting at these places as well). There are other Singapore blogs that discuss this issue, but because those blog owners have indicated that they do not wish to be linked by Tomorrow.sg, they are not linked to.

What do bloggers around the world think of this debate? Are similar problems cropping up in other countries? Please hit the “comments” button and let us know!!

13 comments · »»

Freedom of Speech News 

a small portrait of this author Julien Pain · 14:23

The latest developments on threats to Freedom of Speech over the past week.
With Reporters sans frontières

China: Two cyber-dissidents put under surveillance during UN human rights visit
The Chinese authorities put Liu Di, a young Internet user who was imprisoned for a year in 2002-2003, and Liu Xiaobo, a leading figure in the Chinese pro-democracy movement, under surveillance on 29 August while receiving a visit from Louise Arbour, the UN high commissioner for human rights.

Vietnam : Government urged to pardon three cyber-dissidents
Reporters Without Borders called on justice minister Uong Chu Luu and on president Tran Duc Luong to include Pham Hong Son, Nguyen Khac Toan and Nguyen Vu Binh in the list of prisoners who will be pardoned on the 60th anniversary of Vietnam's independence on 2 September. More details.

Deutsche Welle blogs contest
Bloggers invited to compete in freedom of expression category sponsored by Reporters sans frontières
Deutsche Welle launched its second Best Of The Blogs – or BOBS – competition on 1 September. Reporters Without Borders is sponsoring a special category for blogs that defend freedom of expression. Internet users are invited to use an online form to propose their favourite blog (in any of nine languages).
The BOBS site
Propose a blog
Attention: To propose a blog that defends freedom of expression, click on “Special Reporters Without Borders Award” in the Nomination Category menu.

1 comment · »»

Sept 2, 2005: International Blogging for Disaster Relief Day 

a small portrait of this author Andy Carvin · 11:23

Tomorrow, Friday September 2, is . Why? Because it needs to be done.

If you have a blog, here's what you can do. Sometime tomorrow, take a break from whatever it is you usually blog about, and post something constructive related to disaster relief. You can keep it topical to your blog; or, you can just dedicate blog space to listing websites where people can donate money (maybe even challenge people to match your donation). Or, share a story of a hurricane survivor. This goes for photo bloggers, podcasters and video bloggers as well - there's no reason why this should be text-only.

Though this is inspired by Hurricane Katrina, the goal is to deal with disaster relief efforts worldwide, posting about a disaster relevant to your community. Post lists of supplies needed for victims of yesterday's stampede in Baghdad. Post an update on how your family is recovering from the tsunami. Post multi-lingual resources for African families in Paris displaced by the recent apartment fires. Blog about whatever you choose, as long as it supports some kind of disaster assistance in a constructive way.

When you've posted to your blog, be sure to include a link to this Technorati tag: . That way, when people follow that link, they'll be able to find a collection of all relevant postings published throughout the blogosphere. There will also be an RSS feed on that page, which can be used to aggregate all of the postings and display them on a single webpage. I plan to aggregate them on my Katrina Aftermath blog; you can do the same. (Later, I'll post a javascript on my Katrina blog to make it easy for anyone to do this - more soon.) One collection of disaster relief resources, countless bloggers. That's the power of the blogosphere.

So please join me tomorrow and participate in . Take a break from whatever it is you normally blog about - even if it's just for one post - and give back to the Net.

5 comments · »»
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